DCUO- will be out November 2. Can apply for beta on main site now.

[Margalis]

The combat certainly doesn't look anything like a bona-fide action game.

[Fordel]

It looked like WoW combat, but sped up and with more jumping and button mashing. Maybe it feels different when you actually play it /shrug



I also wouldn't fret too much over 'only 8 skills' or whatever. Guild Wars follows a similar implementation and I'd hardly call the combat 'dumed down' or what have you. Even in WoW, most people only ever actually use half a dozen skills 90% of the time.


My question is what kind of machine will it run on for the PC? I enjoy the art style for the most part, and it looks pretty smooth, but what kind of system do you think will be required?

[Trippy]

What did Jack Emmert do? Is there a story somewhere I should read?

He was an executive involved with MMOs.  Any executive involved with an MMO will be the subject of fanatic hatred eternally when Class X in his game has its aggro reduction coefficient reduced from .5 to .48.   Its like if you wanted to go to McDonalds with someone who liked their food, but instead the person screamed at you that the current CEO was CEO of Burger King during that one time on February 8th, 1987 when his burger had too much ketchup on it. 

Jack Emmert aka "Statesman" was the lead designer on City of Heroes and was responsible for the arguably the greatest series of global nerfs in NA MMORPG history (not counting major system replacements like SWG's NGE). People like Brad McQuaid and Gordon Wrinn (aka "Abashi" aka "Abashi's Rod of Disempowerment" aka the "Nerf Bat") are total amateurs compared to the nerfing prowess of Statesman.

Now some of the nerfs were in fact necessary because of initial blunders in the game design (e.g. not having target caps on AoE powers). However the worst global nerf, aka "Enhancement Diversification" aka "ED", was put into place because Jack thought players were too powerful. This in a game of fucking *SUPER HEROES*.

The game had/has many innovative features but for every one of them there were/are equally brain-damaged design decisions to offset the innovative ones. Thanks to Jack's "Vision" for the game, though, they didn't try and fix some of the crappier parts of the game until he was out of the picture but by then it was too late to grow the game beyond a certain level.

[Trippy]

The key to making a good Supers game is making sure the characters have distinct abilities, looks, powers, professions, and vices.  So far, from what I've seen of DCUO it's basically "you're all special and you all kick the same amount of carbon-copied ass."  I got no sense of originality from that demo that makes individual superheros what they really are... which is extremely unique and fatally flawed.  I mean cmon, "defense-mode?"  Are you serious?

I think thats the thing i like about it actually, I hated the idea in CoH/V that you had to select an archtype ... when are superheroes tanks, dps, healers and crowd control?

DCUO seems more in line with a superhero theme, being able to switch your mode and what not. I mean i guess you can say that about every MMO setting but for superheroes the idea of no classes just seems to fit. I never saw superman as a tank - high defense no offense ... or Wolverine as a DPSer, no defense all offense.

Without knowing more about character building/advancement it's hard to say if "mode" switching is simply their way of handling the problem of how to activate powers from a set larger than can be reasonably handled by a console controller or if in fact for any character you can be a "tank" or "blaster" or "support" or whatever depending on what mode you are in a la Matrix Online.

[Big Gulp]

Will you be able to survive missing Star Trek Online?

I despise Star Trek, so this is no big loss for me.

[UnSub]

Then you may want to look at ChampO, and you can have 5 (or more) superpowers, and the nemesis thing looks cool.

Except that it's got the tainted hands of Jack Emmert all over it, while DCUO doesn't.

I swore I'd never touch another one of his games again, and I meant it.

Good thing DCUO is coming from SOE, which has no history of doing anything vaguely similar like nerfing.

[UnSub]

What did Jack Emmert do? Is there a story somewhere I should read?

He was an executive involved with MMOs.  Any executive involved with an MMO will be the subject of fanatic hatred eternally when Class X in his game has its aggro reduction coefficient reduced from .5 to .48.   Its like if you wanted to go to McDonalds with someone who liked their food, but instead the person screamed at you that the current CEO was CEO of Burger King during that one time on February 8th, 1987 when his burger had too much ketchup on it. 

Jack Emmert aka "Statesman" was the lead designer on City of Heroes and was responsible for the arguably the greatest series of global nerfs in NA MMORPG history (not counting major system replacements like SWG's NGE). People like Brad McQuaid and Gordon Wrinn (aka "Abashi" aka "Abashi's Rod of Disempowerment" aka the "Nerf Bat") are total amateurs compared to the nerfing prowess of Statesman.

Now some of the nerfs were in fact necessary because of initial blunders in the game design (e.g. not having target caps on AoE powers). However the worst global nerf, aka "Enhancement Diversification" aka "ED", was put into place because Jack thought players were too powerful. This in a game of fucking *SUPER HEROES*.

The game had/has many innovative features but for every one of them there were/are equally brain-damaged design decisions to offset the innovative ones. Thanks to Jack's "Vision" for the game, though, they didn't try and fix some of the crappier parts of the game until he was out of the picture but by then it was too late to grow the game beyond a certain level.

In the design of CoH some basic mistake with powers we designed in. Things like no AOE caps, defence that stacked in an additive rather than multiplicative way (meaning that each bit of defence you got was substantially better than the last piece), certain ATs were nigh invulnerable, etc. The biggest issue imo was the power gap between the best and gimpiest powerset combos.

Emmert saw in a number of changes - good and bad - that angried up the blood of a lot of CoH/V players. A major issue was saying "No more nerfs to powers", but then changing how the enhancement system worked which nerfed powers (which, in Emmert's defence, he did apologise for because he saw powers and enhancements as separate systems when he made the comment).

A lot of forum warriors don't like his legacy, but a lot of things come down to inexperience and the fact that no lead dev of a MMO escapes the wrath of a character nerfed (although Positron, the current lead, avoids a lot of flack since the powers guy, Castle, posts a lot in the forums).

[HaemishM]

Again, to all of you saying THIS IS COX- wtf could they have done to a superhero MMO to have it NOT involve people flying, running fast, and shooting ice from their hands?  I just don't get the anger. 

As was said before, it's not anger... it's angst. It's the ennui that comes with having seen it all before. The ONLY thing in there that didn't look like Yet Another Fucking DIKU (only with SUPERHEROES!) was the car tossing thing. And they didn't seem to use that very well.

It looked like "stand around and mash your special abilities while your opponent stands there and mashes his special abilities" and that was it. That can be fun, but it's certainly nothing to get excited about.

[Murgos]

It really looked like a lot of MOTS to me.  The city-scape looks the same as CoX, Characters looked very similar to CoX, the one screen with the point assignment to powers and skills looked very similar to enhancements and etc...

The fact that you can decide to place points into stats that make a difference, the example being leveling up strength to pick up a bus, is great through.  Most MMO's play lip service to the traditional RPG character differentiators so it's nice to see someone embracing it.

Even though it looked like MOTS I'll still probably try it.  CoH, pre-nerfs, was one of the more enjoyable experiences I've had.

[Draegan]

I'd love to see some different settings other than just a shitty city or generic lab or something.

[Velorath]

One more thing, (and forgive me here for a moment of nerd rage) but even with Superman's help a lv. 25 hero (which they said is mid-range) with swords is expected to fight Doomsday?

[Triforcer]

Read the comis carefully.  I don't believe Doomsday has ever been killed with swords before- thus, its quite possible 

[Murgos]

One more thing, (and forgive me here for a moment of nerd rage) but even with Superman's help a lv. 25 hero (which they said is mid-range) with swords is expected to fight Doomsday?

I'd rather have that than 'raid content'.

[Fordel]

She was clearly just the distraction and Superman was supposed to blind side Doomsday. Except Superman looked to have gotten bugged out into a wall near the end.


That, or he just decided to watch her die half a dozen times. Super Dick 

[Venkman]

Read the comis carefully.  I don't believe Doomsday has ever been killed with swords before- thus, its quite possible 

In Superman vs Doomsday two, before Superman drops Doomsday into infinity, Mother Box equips him with a sword that can cut Doomsday. He does so, and it's at this point that we're clear that the latter is basically one solid biomass (no separate organs, all done through the rather extreme method of forced evolution and learning cells used to create him)*. The sword doesn't kill him, but he can be cut and therefore damaged with one.

* this is all from memory, and that itself is, what, 15 years ago now? It may have been Supermna vs Doomsday 3, but I think that was the one where the end up on Apocolyps

[UnSub]

One more thing, (and forgive me here for a moment of nerd rage) but even with Superman's help a lv. 25 hero (which they said is mid-range) with swords is expected to fight Doomsday?

Welcome to the world where Batman-inspired characters will DPS Darkseid into a fine grey mist.

I don't think powers balancing will have been done yet.

[Nevermore]

Read the comis carefully.  I don't believe Doomsday has ever been killed with swords before- thus, its quite possible 

In Superman vs Doomsday two, before Superman drops Doomsday into infinity, Mother Box equips him with a sword that can cut Doomsday. He does so, and it's at this point that we're clear that the latter is basically one solid biomass (no separate organs, all done through the rather extreme method of forced evolution and learning cells used to create him)*. The sword doesn't kill him, but he can be cut and therefore damaged with one.

* this is all from memory, and that itself is, what, 15 years ago now? It may have been Supermna vs Doomsday 3, but I think that was the one where the end up on Apocolyps

And this is just a small, tame look at what the DCUO boards will look like.  An MMO using an IP with a 50+ year history.  It'll be thousands of Comic Book Guys arguing over every minutia of every established character that ends up in the game.   

[UnSub]

DCUO has to deal with things that comics can overlook, like how Batman isn't killed every time he faces Sinestro. The Green Lantern, armed with a power ring that can do pretty much anything his imagination wants, has trouble with Sinestro (who has his own yellow ring), so Sinestro should have no issue with a man in a bat costume.

Instead, Batman will end up with stats around the same as Superman and the forum wars will begin.

[Triforcer]

Heh, perhaps that's the reason they have that godawful Myspace page instead of a real website with forums.  Listening to "OMG GREEN LANTERN'S COSTUME HAS WRINKLES AND THE POWER RING PREVENTS THAT IN THE COMICS" would probably get tiresome. 

EDIT:  But on second thought, D.C. comic fans are used to this kind of stuff.  Every single run of even the same character has that person in a different outfit, the city looks different, his origin has been retconned, the Joker can stand toe to toe with Batman in single combat for an extended length of time and then in the next run he's down with one punch, etc.  This is the one place where saying "a wizard did it" when people whine about continuity is actually a valid response. 

[eldaec]

What did Jack Emmert do? Is there a story somewhere I should read?

He was in charge of a level based diku mmog when they corrected a few obvious balance problems.

That's all.

But you know how some people get.

[Trippy]

DCUO has to deal with things that comics can overlook, like how Batman isn't killed every time he faces Sinestro. The Green Lantern, armed with a power ring that can do pretty much anything his imagination wants, has trouble with Sinestro (who has his own yellow ring), so Sinestro should have no issue with a man in a bat costume.

Instead, Batman will end up with stats around the same as Superman and the forum wars will begin.

DCUO doesn't have to deal with those things if Batman never fights Sinestro. I.e. you are somehow assuming that there are missions for every NPC Hero to fight every NPC Villain.

[SnakeCharmer]

That's a helluva cross reference to put together.  I wouldn't want to be the intern that had to go research that.

[Triforcer]

There are plenty of opportunities for Batman to fight his own rogues gallery, even if you didn't repeat a villain (and of course they will), you can still create dozens of different instances. 

I just want to help Ambush Bug. 

[UnSub]

DCUO has to deal with things that comics can overlook, like how Batman isn't killed every time he faces Sinestro. The Green Lantern, armed with a power ring that can do pretty much anything his imagination wants, has trouble with Sinestro (who has his own yellow ring), so Sinestro should have no issue with a man in a bat costume.

Instead, Batman will end up with stats around the same as Superman and the forum wars will begin.

DCUO doesn't have to deal with those things if Batman never fights Sinestro. I.e. you are somehow assuming that there are missions for every NPC Hero to fight every NPC Villain.

Hmm, perhaps. Perhaps only Superman villains hang around Metropolis while Batman villains stay around Gotham.

On the other hand, Batman and Superman do team up against some odd opponents:



I'm sure that Batman-based characters will want to be able to fight everyone but not be outpowered by Superman-based characters. (It cuts both ways - Superman should be able to put the Joker in prison in about 5/10ths of a second, but doesn't).

And Tri: all of those retcons, changes, mistakes and soap operas just leaves more fertile ground for nerds to run riot. If you choose to ignore that you are arguing which fictional power fantasy can beat up which other fictional power fantasy in an explosion of testosterone and homoeroticism, the world can be your oyster.

[Triforcer]

More infos coming out of New York Comic Con!!  Here is the most comprehensive random-conventiongoer-impression I've seen written up so far:

http://dcuosource.com/index.php/topic,335.0.html

Swinging and teleportation=gud.  Power emanation points and power coloring= double plus gud. 

Also, new trailers up at Gametrailers- http://www.gametrailers.com/game/8708.html?sort=date#Content

EDIT:  new info on PvP- http://www.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=16853#comments

[UnSub]

Having watched those videos, I see some things I think will be design flaws, like world PvP surrounding PvE missions and the how the character creation system is proposed (Origin, Power Source, Weapon, Travel Power).

But we'll see at launch. Or beta. I'm pretty sure some things are going to change markedly based on player feedback. Although, this is SOE, so history probably isn't in our favour on that...

[Venkman]

I'm a bit skeptical about integrated PvP as well, but I'd like to see it tried again. WAR I thought had some good ideas subjugated by completely misunderstanding how players actually play. But there's still worthwhile exploration to build upon. After all this time it still Could(tm) be cool to have optional quests with each side having a competing objective in the same area.

As to the creation system, I actually like that travel power is a separate tree from the Primary/Secondary pool of CoH. This way you're not being asked to compromise your advancement along the power curve. Also means you could get a travel power right away rather than having to wait 5-10 hours of /played.

Finally, I'm just happy to see what looks like it could be* a fun game from SOE. It's been a very long time.

* usual MMO veteran conditions in place of course.

[Goreschach]

One thing to keep in mind is that if the travel powers are anything like in CO, it'll be a whole lot easier to avoid or escape pvp if you want to.

[UnSub]

True. But it'll then run into CoH/V's PvP problem of every time one side looks like it'll lose, they run away at high speed. It's stuff like that I expect to see get changed before launch.

DCUO's death penalty sounds interesting: it has none. 10 seconds to wait for a respawn and you can choose to start where you fell or a short, safe distance away. There's been some talk of player deaths incurring time penalties on missions (so if you die, it's only 10 seconds to wait, but you might lose 60 seconds off the mission clock) but again, it is probably yet to be fully decided. However, this really just promotes the idea of a war of attrition against anything that doesn't have a penalty.

[Triforcer]

That DCUO source writeup I mentioned said that Speedsters and acrobats have ways to permanently stay with fliers (grappling cable for acrobats, "static/magnetic cling" for speedsters).  The Allakazam article also said that CC could rein in fliers (notice the dev quote in that article saying "Crowd control will play a big part in this game"  ).

So, sounds like they realize the potential issues.   

[Venkman]

DCUO's death penalty sounds interesting: it has none. 10 seconds to wait for a respawn and you can choose to start where you fell or a short, safe distance away. There's been some talk of player deaths incurring time penalties on missions (so if you die, it's only 10 seconds to wait, but you might lose 60 seconds off the mission clock) but again, it is probably yet to be fully decided. However, this really just promotes the idea of a war of attrition against anything that doesn't have a penalty.

Wow, it really sounds like a new world order over at SOE. No XP loss? No crushing respawn point? I can easily except time penalities, as long as not every mission isn't time-based. 10 second respawn to spawn at your location sounds better than Godeasymode WoW.

Still not at the "hope" stage yet of course. Too many years of aggressive death penalties to atone for

[Malakili]

Both CO and DCUO seem interesting in that I do enjoy me some Super Heroes.  However, in general the DC universe is just not all that appealing to me.  I'd much prefer something else.  However, DCUO seems like is has better mechanics thus far, and a better concept.

Ah well.  Most likely I'll play both for a couple months before adding them to my ever growing shelf of "I don't play it anymore"

[eldaec]

  However, DCUO seems like is has better mechanics thus far, and a better concept.

What differences have you identified other than 'you can only have 5 super powers in DC'?

Even the death penalty thing is meaningless other than in how it contributes to overall grind,and assumptions that DC will have little overall grind seem.... unwise.

[Venkman]

Having no handson, I'm going only by the videos and the reports. DCUO seems much more actiony, quicker, not much in the way of target locking (though it appears to be there), more in the spirit of 1 vs 4 that was old CoH. CO meanwhile seems a bit more like what CoH became later in its life. Maybe great for CoH players, but the general audience would have shown up long ago if there was something there to attract them.

Add to that then the much more known IP and the marketing and sales support it brings, and as long as SOE isn't trying to make it 2003 again, things should work out very well for them.

If this was a few years ago I'd be waiting for DCUO to fail simply because SOE was working on it. But all of the things that have been screwed up since EQ2 weren't internally developed.

[Malakili]

  However, DCUO seems like is has better mechanics thus far, and a better concept.

What differences have you identified other than 'you can only have 5 super powers in DC'?

Even the death penalty thing is meaningless other than in how it contributes to overall grind,and assumptions that DC will have little overall grind seem.... unwise.

PvP mainly.  CO has none to speak of aside from an arena from what I can tell.  DCUO is still too early in development to know for sure, but they are claiming contested objectives and guild based PvP.